


Please Pardon Yourself

by AustinB



Series: Bloodstream [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clint x coffee, Domestic Fluff, Family Fluff, Fluff, M/M, OT5 Friendship, Smut, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson Friendship, Vampire Bucky, Vampire Natasha Romanov, Vampire Steve, Vampires, everyone is a vampire ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-16 17:19:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5834017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AustinB/pseuds/AustinB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint skips ahead to the middle of their friendship.</p><p>Sam is exactly as smart as he looks. (Which is to say, very.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

New family members are required to live at the Tower until they’re fully integrated. (Until it’s certain they can be trusted with their new strength.) Steve has been staying with Bucky for the initial adjustment period, but Fury calls him down to the companion floor for a fly-by meeting. Their patriarch is busy these days, getting and keeping things in order the old fashioned way, rather than using shady shortcuts as Pierce had.

“You’re welcome to take your own floor, or you can stay with James permanently,” Fury says. Bucky had already given him the tour of the building. The upper 50 floors belong to the family, accessible only by special elevators tucked away in a back corridor and equipped with fingerprint scanners. The family floors are all mostly the same layout as Bucky's; large, open areas with tinted floor-to-ceiling windows. The 75th floor is a family communal area, where the theme from True Blood has been playing on a loop since Tony hacked the PA as a 'welcome to the family' for Steve. 

“Go,” Fury says with a twitch of his hand. “Discuss.”

* * *

They don't discuss it. Bucky seems to assume Steve will be staying with him, and Steve is happy to carry on as they are. But he keeps his apartment by the hospital, too.

* * *

Steve meets his new family slowly. He thinks Bucky may have warned them not to ambush him all at once, and he's grateful for it. 

Clint jumps straight into the middle of their friendship. Steve is still on lockdown, two weeks a vampire and Bucky has finally started letting him put clothes on for long enough to leave his floor for longer than 20 minutes at a time. He’s exploring the communal floor, where there’s a comfortable living space with couches, bookshelves and a T.V., and a full kitchen. Jace Everett is still playing over the speakers.

Clint comes off the elevator looking slightly disheveled, wearing sunglasses and holding a plastic Target bag. He doesn’t look at Steve, who’s sitting at a table in the corner investigating what kind of magazines vampires keep. (Popular Mechanics, GQ and Nat Geo, mostly.)

“Hey man,” Clint says to him, pulling a box of K-cups out of the plastic bag, “do you know how to do these?”

He’s cheerful, for a vampire. (Once he has his coffee.) Not the affected, posturing kind of joviality that Tony puts on, but an honest, true and deep appreciation for life that’s infectious. He and Sam would really get along.

He’s casual and familiar from the very moment they meet, and while Steve is initially surprised that this is the man Natasha has chosen, after a few minutes, it starts to make a lot of sense.

* * *

"Hey, look what I got," Clint says, pulling a coffee mug emblazoned with a decorative 'C' out of a Target bag. He's always bringing home trendy bullshit from that place; his floor is full of fake Navajo-printed rugs and teal shabby chic shelves; he even has a red card. There's something about the logo, he claims, that speaks to him in a sinister kind of way.

("I go in for a fucking pack of toilet paper and come out $250 later with a fucking blender and six cable knit sweaters.")

"Yeah, because you needed another coffee mug," Steve says over the back of the couch, where he's nestled, reading his fourth book this week. It's like he's on vacation. When Bucky's at work and when he's not playing video games with Clint, he's finding the time to read all those books he always wanted to, but was too tired after a week of work to do anything but be a couch potato. 

"I do. Mine all get dirty before the dishwasher gets run."

"That's because you heathens load it up way too full. You could just wash them by hand, you know."

Clint pulls a face. "Now who's the heathen?"

"Do you need me to show you how to use the dishsoap?"

"Oh, fuck right off."

"This is strange," Nat says, strolling in off the elevators and tucking herself into the couch opposite Steve. "I didn't think anyone could love him more than I do, yet here you are."

"Aw," Clint says, then cocks his head, like he's not sure that's something to _aw_ about after all.

* * *

He took a month off work, to be sure he’d be able to be around humans again. It’s a good thing, too, because it also gives him time to feasibly have gotten stacked. He has an 'experimental drug and workout routine' excuse rehearsed and at the ready.

Bucky takes him out to the Red Room as a tester the week before he goes back to the hospital.

It’s different this time, with a new lens over his eyes. The place is still swank as fuck, but it’s more real. The waitress is a little haggard and when she pushes through the swinging doors to the kitchen, Steve can see the bustle of activity and hear the cook shouting for more onions.

The same pretty brunette, Angie, a human-- takes them to the sectioned-off room reserved for family and friends. It’s a Saturday night, so the room is almost full, and the greetings he and Bucky receive are far more familiar than the last time. Steve wonders if it’s a product of his being part of the family now, or of the entire family feeling more at ease in general.

Bucky orders them the 'Family Red' which is a blend of red wine and blood, and they drink and talk from table to table. 

“You doing ok?” Bucky asks.

Steve shrugs, “Yeah.” If he concentrates, he can hear the heartbeats of the 25 humans in the other room, their blood swishing in their veins, the clatter of pans on the burner. But if he concentrates, he can also tune it out. It's pretty easy to do, with Bucky looking at him from across the table, reaching over to touch his arm.

“I knew you would," Bucky says, and leans back when Angie approaches. She sets a black folder at their table and clears away a few glasses.

“What? Ange?” Bucky waves the black folder in the air at her as she walks away, like maybe it was an accident and she should come back and get it.

“Sorry, Buck,” she says over her shoulder, “new management.”

Bucky sucks his teeth, then fishes out his wallet. Steve plucks the bill out of his fingers and gasps, “Jesus Mary and Joseph.” 

Bucky just waves his hand in the air dismissively. 

“You really have that much money that this is nothing to you?”

Bucky snatches the black folder back and tucks his credit card in it. “I’ve been working for the last 90 years. And Pierce paid well.”

Steve eyes the black folder distrustfully. He has a flashback to a man delivering 18 Macy's boxes to his door. Bucky grins at him.

“I’m gonna buy you so much shit.”

Steve glares. “Don’t you dare.”

“Clothes and watches and _cars_.”

“Bucky!”

“What! C’mon, let me spoil you. I just want to make you happy.”

Steve softens, and turns his hand up so he can fit his fingers between Bucky's. “I am happy.”

* * *

He rolls his shoulders before he sets them, and walks in as casually as he knows how. When he takes off his coat and walks behind the desk, where Sharon is standing with a chart in her hand, looking droopy-eyed, she looks up at him without recognition.

“I’m sorry, sir, you can’t—“ she yelps and the chart clatters on the floor. “Steve?”

“Hey, Share.”

She yanks out her phone and snaps a picture, then punches the screen for a moment, Steve presumes, to text it to Sam.

“You bastard,” she says when she looks up at him, but she’s smiling.

On his rounds, he swings by Peggy’s room and has to lean against the doorway so he won’t collapse.

She’s wasted away to almost nothing, skin stretched tight over her bones, frail and brittle. He sits next to her bed and takes her hand gingerly. Her eyes flutter open and she turns her head.

He offers her a watery smile and opens his mouth to reassure her that it’s him, but she says, “Steven Grant Rogers, what did you do?” Her voice is a whisper, but the steel is still there underneath, and Steve barks a wet laugh.

They talk for as long as Steve can be spared from the floor, and before he leaves, he says quietly, “I love you, Peg.”

She smiles, all sweet, except for that one salty eyebrow. “Oh Steve, I love you too, but I’m a married woman.”

“So you mean you won’t be running away with me?”

She smiles brightly, “Darling, I won’t be running anywhere.”

When he makes his way back to the desk at the end of his shift, he’s horrified to find Bucky flirting with Sharon. She has her purse over her shoulder, stars in her eyes, waiting for Sam to come fetch her.

“Hey guys, glad you’ve met, c’mon Buck we have to go to that thing.”

“Not a chance, Rogers, I’m keeping him. You responsible for this?” Sharon gestures to Steve’s whole body.

Bucky shrugs, “In part.”

“So this is the sugar daddy,” Sam says, coming up the hall behind them. Bucky laughs and shakes his hand.

“Oh Jesus,” Steve mutters, "You're going to get along, aren't you?"


	2. Chapter 2

Sam hands Steve a photograph. It’s 6 a.m., the ER is gearing up for the day, but still quiet enough that no one notices Steve blanch. The photo is real; not a copy or a printout. Thickly layered paper, worn ivory with age, edges and corners creased, tattered.

It’s a photograph of Bucky in his WWII uniform; proud smile, a hero going off to fight for his country, his family.

Sam has met Bucky three or four times, at the hospital. One of them must've let slip Bucky's real name, though Steve can't remember when.

It occurs to Steve that Sam must have searched through an archive, or maybe looked up an old (new?) relative of Bucky’s to find this, rather than the quick internet search Steve did.

Sam’s face is neutral, which is disconcerting because Sam is always smiling, inviting and warm. He lets Steve search his expression for only a moment, before turning away to his work without a word.

He doesn’t get the chance to talk to him at the hospital, but asks him to his apartment that night.

Steve and Bucky sit on the couch, while Sam sits in the broken recliner across from them, still with that same blank look on his face. Bucky’s looking nervous too, probably for different reasons.

“You agreed to this?” Sam asks him.

“I _wanted_ this.”

“You’re— dead?”

“Technically, yes.”

Sam blows out a breath. “You can— is there—“ another sigh. Steve knows the feeling. Too many questions. “He _killed_ you.”

Sam and Bucky had hit it off great from the get-go, but the look Sam pins him with now is filled with as close a thing as Sam will ever get to hatred.

“Yeah, but look at what he _did_.” Steve gestures to himself and Bucky closes his eyes.

Yeah, look at what he did. He made Steve cold. Room-temperature at best. Sluggish heartbeat, creamy skin that no longer freckles in the sun. Bucky killed him.

“I’m strong,” Steve says. “I can— I can _do_ more. _Help_ people. Sam, I can _save_ people.” Steve shifts forward on the couch in his earnestness and Bucky looks at him, wildly incredulous. Sam’s fury had such conviction and the seed of doubt that had been festering in Bucky’s mind from day one makes hearing Steve extolling the virtues of vampirism seem a little outlandish.

“Don’t tell Sharon,” Steve pleads quietly. “She wouldn’t understand.”

“Not sure I can understand.”

Steve can’t say anything to that, and Sam leaves shortly after, overwhelmed and exhausted and sad. Bucky can’t seem to move from the couch, can’t seem to decide how he’s feeling.

“Are you ok? Will Fury be mad? Should we tell him?” Steve sits heavily next to him and Bucky decides.

He covers Steve with his body. His mouth opens in surprise and Bucky licks into it, warm and wet and perfect. Steve falls into it after a brief hesitation, not bothering to move to the bed.

Afterward, naked and sated, Bucky grins into Steve’s chest.

“You love me.”

Steve scoffs. “What? Of all the crazy— where on earth would you get an idea like that?”

* * *

He and Sam still work together efficiently, but there’s no friendly banter and barely any polite conversation.

After four months of this treatment, a bad burn case comes in. An apartment fire has already killed three, and the remaining five range from minor burns to smoke inhalation to third-degree requiring skin grafts.

Steve runs the little girl’s bed to the ER as the paramedics brief Dr. Odinson on the injuries. Eight years old; the skin on her arms and the left side of her face is blackened in places, bright pink and red in others, mottled and melted. Her singed ponytail is blonde.

The operating room flurry only lasts about twenty minutes. She flatlines, the damage too much for her tiny body to withstand. Looking down at her on the stark white table, Steve’s ears start to ring. There are no fewer than six people in the room, but Steve brings his wrist up to his mouth anyway, fully intending to bite down and press his bleeding vein to her lips. He just has to try, he _has to try_.

Sam shoots a hand out and grabs his forearm. He shakes his head minutely, and Dr. Odinson calls T.O.D.

Six hours later, Sam finds Steve in the doctor’s sleep room, after all the other burn victims have been treated.

He’s resting his elbows on his knees, head hanging, shoulders shaking with barely restrained sobs. Sam sits next to him and pulls Steve’s head into his chest, holding tight. Steve grabs his friend’s arm to ground himself, and the simple act of being comforted makes several tears fall.

When his breathing returns to normal, he pulls away, sets his elbows back on his knees, hands clasped.

Their thighs are pressed together and Sam mirrors his position, then looks over at him.

“You’re still you.”

* * *

Bucky has taken to picking Steve up from the hospital, Steve suspects to get Sam to come around, and eventually he does. He’ll wave and say “Hey,” at first, then a polite conversation, then a friendly joke, then all of a sudden he and Sharon are coming out for drinks with Clint, Natasha, Tony and them.

It’s eerily comfortable. In the back corner of a loud, dark club, the seven of them standing around one small table sipping drinks. Sharon looks a little nervous, but Sam’s unflappable geniality remains unflapped, even amongst a table of vampires. He and Clint hit it off, as Steve had suspected.

“The seventh wheel brought the moonshine,” Tony says, pulling a flask from somewhere.

“You held onto it long enough,” Clint says, snatching the flask and taking a swig. He coughs, then tips it up for another, but Natasha cuffs the back of his head and he passes it to her obediently. It’s the only thing strong enough to give them the slightest buzz, and they have a distributor in Georgia ship barrels to the Tower, much to Fury’s disapproval.

Steve’s smiling fondly at their banter, looking around the table at his friends. His family.

Bucky holds the flask out to him, wearing a smile that matches his own, and Steve leans in to take a kiss instead.

He feels a humble thankfulness swelling in his chest, like a bubble, warm and squishy. He got lucky, so, so lucky.

When the humans tire and leave for home, with hugs and handshakes all around, Bucky takes the opportunity to slip away from the rest of the family, who have decided to stay out. He pulls Steve toward home, running if the sidewalk is clear, then pulling him into an alley to kiss his neck and collarbones when the desire strikes him.

Bucky gets Steve's shirt off in the elevator, and by some miracle it winds up in their foyer instead of strewn somewhere embarrassing. 

Steve kneels on the bed, leaning forward to brace his hands against the headboard. Bucky fucks him from behind, one hand on Steve’s on the headboard, fingers twined, the other wrapped around his chest, thumb scraping over a nipple. When Bucky bites down on Steve’s shoulder, he yells and tips his head further to the side. The blood is sluggish and only a few drops make it to the surface through the small punctures before they heal.

Bucky bites him twice more across his shoulder and up the side of his neck. The third time, Steve’s hand flies from the headboard to the back of Bucky’s head, holding him there as he comes on the sheets.

Bucky fucks him through it, slow pull out, sharp thrust back in, until Steve melts against the pillows.

Bucky pulls carefully out, kissing and licking the skin he’d bitten. Steve reaches back to tap his thigh, a silent encouragement.

“I’m good,” Bucky says. Bucky wants to kiss him, wants to suck him hard again and make him scream. It’s been six months of not having to hold back his strength, being matched in every way, outdone in every way, and he’s starting to understand that this desire will always burn under his ribs, just next to his heart.

Steve turns under him, grabbing him by the hips and pulling him back in. “Finish,” he says.

Bucky sinks back inside of him and thrusts hard and fast. When his hips start to stutter, Steve takes Bucky’s face in his hands to watch him, eyes soft with reverence. When Bucky comes, Steve moans with him, though his dick is soft and spent. Bucky drives in deep and rolls his hips jerkily a few times, then collapses on Steve’s chest, his head tucked under his chin.

“God, you are so beautiful,” Steve says, voice rumbling straight into Bucky’s ear. “I’m the luckiest guy in the whole world.”

“Nah, pal, sorry,” Bucky turns his head to press a kiss to his collarbone. “That title’s mine.”

* * *

Steve still pays rent at his apartment. He’s not sure why, he's never there, and all of his stuff is at Bucky’s. He loves his new life, but he goes back sometimes. Sits in his broken recliner and remembers the way he used to be. Independent, bull-headed. Tired, weak.

He tips the recliner over and tightens the screw again, then rights it and sits back down. He looks around again and suddenly, the cozy space just feels small. Empty.

Steve gets up and pokes his head in the fridge. There’s an old jar of mayonnaise, a half empty bottle of ketchup and a weird smell. He makes a face and closes the door, then goes back home, where Bucky is waiting for him.


End file.
